Manuscripts Studies Digital Project Review Information

Manuscript Studies:  A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies includes reviews of digital projects related to the study of pre-modern manuscript books and documents from all geographical regions.

Reviewers are chosen by the Review Editor for their expertise in the subject matter.  The ideal reviewer is sympathetic but critical, without prejudice for or against the project coordinator or team, the subject, or the methodology, and without personal conflicts of interest.  Project reviews are 1,000 to 1,500 words and follow the Chicago Manual of Style.  Deadlines are usually three months from the date of assignment.

The Editors and Review Editor strive to ensure that reviews are fair to the project coordinator or team and to the project itself.  Although the content of reviews does not represent the judgments of the Editors, the Editors reserve the right to reject reviews that do not meet the expected criteria and standards of professionalism, intellectual rigor, and impartiality.

An acceptable review must provide a clear description of the content of the project, of its method and purpose, and of the navigation to the parts of the resource under discussion.  Building on that foundation, a reviewer should offer fair critical judgment of the project’s scholarly and technical strengths and weaknesses and should aspire to assess the importance of the project in the context of other scholarship.  Footnotes, charts, illustrations, and long lists of errata are rarely appropriate in a review.

Reviews are assigned by the Review Editor, and unsolicited reviews will not be considered.  The reviewer of a digital project in the SIMS Journal should not review the same project elsewhere.  Scholars who wish to write a review for the SIMS Journal should contact the Review Editor at ameyh@pobox.upenn.edu.